After Goodbye
by Autrevalse
Summary: One day, without warning, Mikagami Tokiya left Tokyo. But more than a decade later, when he returns for Yanagi's funeral, he finds that he must finally face the life he had to abandon, the friends he had to forget, and Fuuko - the love he left behind.
1. Eins: A Beginning Like an End

Author's Note: Ah, yes, the obligatory pre-fic Author's Note. After a three-year break from fanfic-writing (and a two-year break from this site), I suddenly got the itch to write again, and this time, I actually had something in mind. Hence, the comeback - not a grand one, mind you; just a nice, simple comeback with an honest-to-goodness Tokiya/Fuuko fic, which I hope you enjoy.

Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

_Kapitel Eins _(Chapter One)  
**A BEGINNING LIKE AN END  
**

Even from the beginning of this story, there is already much I must explain. A pale yellow envelope. The grim news it brought. The country from where it came; the country it arrived in. And of course, every single reason why it had to travel so far.

But I was never a fan of explaining myself, so you'll excuse me if I leave out some details. I will tell what I must, from the beginning, to what I imagine must be the end. The rest, however, I will leave to your imagination.

&

In truth, the beginning reads more like an end, but I will tell it anyway.

I graduated from Nashikiri High with a medal that told the world I was the class valedictorian, and a full scholarship to Tokyo University. A completely different set of possibilities had spread itself before me like some high-class courtesan, and I let her seduce me. I could not be blamed: after all, compared to university life, high school seemed so small to me, so I stepped out of it and left it behind.

I left them, too. Yanagi, Recca, the whole of Team Hokage, or so they continued to call themselves. My scholarship included a lodging grant, which I'd applied for without their knowledge, foolishly thinking it would be easy to leave. When they found out I had to move to campus, I sensed their disappointment, even despite their cheers and congratulations. Truth be told, I felt a stab of disappointment too. I'd only begun to grow fond of seeing them every day – they were the first people I could call friends – and all of a sudden, I was on a bus to the Komaba campus, bags at my feet, gazing back at them as they stood at the station in the dying afternoon light.

That was the last I saw of them for a while. Their senior year was my freshman year, and over those ten months, it was only Yanagi whose letters came to me. During my birthday, there were gifts in the mail from the rest, but it was clear that ours was not a friendship made for long distances.

I spent the summer in advance classes, which I took so I could have more free periods during the semester. I thought I could spend those free periods doing research on training applications, but something came up. Or to put it more accurately, some_one_.

Kirisawa Fuuko appeared in Tokyo University that year, a freshman ready to major in Earth and Planetary Physics.

"Astrophysics?" I asked the first time I ran into her. "I'd never have imagined it."

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Mikagami Tokiya," she said coolly, lowering her Ray-Bans to peer at me intently.

I shrugged. "High school wasn't a lot of time." When she smiled at what I said, I smiled back.

Four months later, I kissed her for the first time, late in the afternoon in front of the library, while the sun was setting and the students were few. Almost two months after that, we made love for the first time in the darkness of my dorm room with books on medical history at the foot of my bed.

Two months after that, I moved out of the Komaba campus to the Hongo campus to begin Medicine, but she and I were still together. When she herself moved to the Hongo campus to begin Earth and Planetary Physics, things were much easier for us. My senior year – her junior year – was my best in college.

When she graduated, I was in my fifth year of medical school. She took on work as a research assistant to fund her post-graduate studies, and between the time I was spending in surgical training and the time she was spending studying atmospheric pressure, we saw less and less of each other. It was no surprise to us when we felt we had to break up, and so we did. We stayed friends, but didn't work to keep in contact. When my last year rolled around, we hardly saw or spoke to each other at all. The last I heard of Fuuko was that she'd found herself someone new, someone who had the same schedules as her, someone she could be with more often than I could manage.

So when I received a grant to train further in the Charité in Germany, I didn't think twice about leaving again. I submitted the documents they needed me to, graduated at the top of the class again, packed my bags and boarded a plane to Berlin. I remember being in a window seat on that plane, Japan beneath me in a mess of green and grey, when I realized – with a sadness that shocked even me – that I was not going to come back.

It's been thirteen years since.

After eight years of training as a cardiac surgeon and five years of practice, I've seen too many human hearts: illustrations, photographs, models, even the real thing on various occasions – and as far as I'm concerned, none of them could be called _broken_. There are sick hearts; there are damaged hearts; there are failing hearts. Medically speaking, there are never any broken hearts.

Yanagi's was a damaged heart. _Patent ductus arteriosus_, said Fuuko's letter. In a nutshell, what happened was this: a hole that is present in the hearts of yet-unborn infants is supposed to slowly start closing when they are born and take their first breath. For Yanagi, however, that was not the case.

I have no idea why her heart defect went undetected for so long. All her fainting spells during the time I was with her – I should have known better. But I can imagine Hanabishi's surprise when he heard something clatter in the kitchen. _He told us he ran downstairs as fast as he could_, Fuuko wrote. When he came in, Yanagi was collapsed on the kitchen floor with a sponge in her hands and a soapy pot at her side. He carried her to his car and drove as fast as he could to the nearest hospital.

_ She was dead when he got there_, she said.

Medically speaking, there are never any broken hearts. But what I felt when I read Fuuko's letter –my chest grew tight, and I felt something inside me sink. Yanagi Sakoshita, the lovely _hime_ we'd all fought for, the beautiful young thing I'd loved in some dark and lonely season – dead of heart failure at thirty-seven.

It is early evening when I unlock the door to my Berlin apartment. I have filed a three-day leave with the hospital, and I have made arrangements for the four AM flight to Tokyo. The door swings open, and the light of the setting sun throws odd, fiery shapes across my walls. Times like this, I can't handle the darkness, so I turn the lights on.

Thirteen years. It's been a long time. There is much I must pack, hotel reservations I must deal with, certain confrontations I must prepare for. Medically speaking, there are never any broken hearts. But I am steeling myself for the possibility that when I see these old faces, these once-friends I abandoned, medical opinion will be shot to hell.

I lock the door, take off my coat and sink into the sofa. Rubbing my eyebrow, I glance at my watch. Six-eighteen. In a few hours, I'll be in Japan again, and though to some it may seem like a homecoming, to me it seems as if my past is slowly – finally – catching up with me.

* * *

Again, the author here: Yes, this is Tokiya's POV, and yes, the fic is set far into the future (the Recca-tachi are almost in their forties), which I think is the reason why I decided to make the storytelling less energetic and more... how shall I say it - world-weary, so to speak. I hope you still enjoyed it though. Till the next chapter, ja! :)


	2. Zwei: Yanagi, One Last Time

Author's Note: My thanks to everyone who took the time to read the first chapter, especially those who reviewed. I'm glad the response to it was positive. As for this chapter, most of it was written during the wee hours of the morning (I'm an owl that way); I hope my episodic insomnia has actually done some good.

Again, standard disclaimers apply. Warning for some strong language.

* * *

_Kapitel Zwei_ (Chapter Two)  
**YANAGI, ONE LAST TIME  
**

My seat rumbles beneath me, so I close my eyes and take a deep breath, bracing myself. _Here I am, Fate_. _Right where you've always wanted me_. The plane touches down, and I look outside the window. It is a wet morning, with people in raincoats holding glum-hued umbrellas. Without warning, the memories come to me in a heady rush, and they seem to me as if they belong to a different man: the scars on Fuuko's shoulder blades, cheap champagne in my dorm room, Yanagi's letters… and slowly her neat handwriting dissolves into Fuuko's thin and hurried script, and all I see is the pale yellow envelope. If I chose to, I could remember all of what was inside of that envelope word for word, but this is no time to be reliving a death. The pilot is making his announcements in a heavy Kansai accent. When he is through, we all start to stand and retrieve our carry-on luggage.

I take my bag, and make my way down the aisle and towards the door. Here, now – again.

Tokyo.

&

The skies hint of rain when the taxi glides along the tree-lined road. I never imagined I would be a supporting actor in the sad movie of my own life, but in this weather (and this suit), that is exactly what I look like. I peer beyond the window. The mourners are few, and I recognize none of them, at least from behind.

The cab grinds to a halt at the bottom of the small hill, on top of which I can see the service has already begun. I pay the fare, alight from the taxi and make my way up quietly, standing some distance behind everyone else.

I find that I am tardier than I thought. The service is, in fact, almost over: before her coffin is closed and lowered slowly into the ground, I catch a half-minute glance at Yanagi, who lies radiant and peaceful, with her hands folded at her bosom and her lips bearing the slightest trace of a smile. There are faint lines around her eyes whose deepening we will, sadly, never be able to watch. When the coffin is deep in the earth, a man comes forward and tosses a single flower into the grave. In the gloom of this slight rain, the white shock of the lily he throws jolts through me like a remembered heartache, and I realize that this lonely figure must be – after this forced and irreversible goodbye – Hanabishi.

I crane my neck somewhat, trying to see who else is here, and for every face I can name, an indefinable ache strums through my stomach. Kage Houshi is pale and somber and lovely: her hair is pulled into a bun, and there is finally some gray at her temples. Hanabishi Shigeo stands beside her, and he, too is uncharacteristically grim.

A slim girl with blue eyes and hair the color of corn is wiping her eyes with a white handkerchief. This must be Ganko now: she looks like she's almost twenty. Her face is sweet and pleasant, and I feel a mild sense of loss, that I must see her as a grown lady for the first time amidst such sadness.

Almost directly in front of me is an old couple. The man touches the woman's cheek tenderly, and when she turns her head towards him, I see that he is wiping her tears. These must be Yanagi's parents. The man's kind and steady eyes were hers; the final streaks of chocolate in the gray of the woman's hair were hers.

There are a few tired-looking middle-aged men and women, about six of them, standing together near Hanabishi, and I guess they are friends of his, from work or something. Hanabishi himself has an expression on his face that is pained and still, like a taut violin string secretly capable of a song of intense melancholy. Beside him, I immediately recognize Ishijima, though he has shaved his head. His brow is knit. The two of them are dressed very simply, compared to the strangers surrounding them whose suits hold more sheen. But they are far from shabby-looking: in fact, there is something very serious and grown-up about the way the two hold themselves now. I wonder if this has anything to do with Yanagi's death – or perhaps, I have simply been gone far too long.

And yet, there are things I cannot forget as easily. Every beautiful woman I've drunkenly gone to bed with in Berlin has, at some point in my inebriated vision, melted into a college girl with violet hair and pale breasts. In the morning when I wake up crease-faced and hung over, I briefly wonder why the girl beside me does not smell of lavender body lotion.

So I wonder if the Fuuko standing there beside Ishijima in a black dress, with her hair pulled into a tight ponytail and her hands trembling still wears that good-morning lavender scent. I watch her. She turns to wipe her eyes, and when she does, I see that her face is a lot thinner and more harshly angled than I remember. In a while, she attempts to return her gaze to the service, but then she does a double-take over her shoulder, looking straight at me.

I freeze. She does not take her eyes off me. I am afraid she will approach me, or worse, beckon me over to the crowd, but after a second, all she does is give me a very polite nod. I do the same, and she faces front once more.

Hanabishi leads the mourners in a short prayer as dirt is shoveled into Yanagi's grave. When he is finished, everyone watches in silence as the gravediggers pat down the fresh mound.

The silence is then broken by Yanagi's parents coming forward and giving Hanabishi a tight hug, before walking slowly away. Everyone begins to go off and comfort each other, and I don't move. I feel like I have trespassed upon a private ritual. Hanabishi's colleagues exchange brief hugs with him, and they too begin to leave in pairs.

Fuuko then detaches herself from the rest and comes toward me. She leans up and gives me a very civil peck on the cheek, totally devoid of any history we had together. This is a different Fuuko from the one I knew.

"I didn't think you could make it," she tells me in a voice that is surprisingly steady. It's been thirteen years – a very, very long time.

"It was Yanagi's funeral. I had to pay my respects."

She nods, choosing to say nothing when everyone else starts flocking towards us.

Kagero gives me the same polite kiss on the cheek, and the older Hanabishi shakes my hand. Ganko gives me a watery smile and a half-bow. They are asking how I am; inquiring about why I suddenly fell off the face of the earth, and dutifully, I explain that my absence was due to my long training in Berlin.

"Training," Ishijima says, shaking my hand as he too comes forward. "What do you do now?"

"I'm a cardiac surgeon."

"Hearts," says a voice. Hanabishi emerges from behind Ishijima, hands resolutely in his pockets.

"I beg your pardon?"

"That's what you operate on," he says coldly. "Hearts. Am I right?"

I nod. "Hearts. Hanabishi, I'm… I'm sorry about Yanagi –"

"Not as sorry as any of us, I bet."

I pause. "Excuse me?"

"Recca," Kagero begins, "this is not the time –"

"So when, mother?" he snaps. She falls silent, and without another word she pulls the older Hanabishi and Ganko down the hill, far from this brewing conflict. Recca turns to me. "When? After another thirteen years? Where the hell _were _you, Mikagami?"

"Didn't I say I was in Germany?"

"Playing doctor? Yeah, you did. You fucking cut us off, man. You didn't even say goodbye, didn't even leave a forwarding address. The lengths Fuuko had to go through to send you that letter. You didn't even say goodbye to _her_ –"

"– Shut _up_, Recca," Fuuko interrupts harshly, and I am suddenly seeing through the mask she's put on for me.

Hanabishi shakes his head. "You could have had the decency to say something – _anything_ – about some fucked-up training stint in fucking Germany. Yanagi was distraught; Fuuko was a wreck. You broke everyone's heart when you left without a word."

Ishijima puts a hand on his shoulder. "Come on Recca; let's go…" He turns to me. "It's been rough for him –"

"One person making excuses is enough!" Hanabishi yells, swatting away Ishijima's hand.

"No one has been making excuses for any one, Hanabishi," I blurt out before I can stop myself. "I left because I had to. And I didn't tell you, because I didn't feel like I had to then. Who was I to you? Who were you to me? We weren't in each other's lives then."

"You were in mine," Fuuko says. The ice in her voice, however faint, surprises me. "You were in mine, Mi-chan. But you chose to leave."

That old nickname, and I feel like I've been slapped. "You had someone else then."

"Because you had your _training_," she whispers fiercely, and it sounds like something cursed and evil when she says it like that. I am speechless. Behind them, Ishijima is useless and open-mouthed like a dead fish.

"If we had known," Hanabishi is speaking in a different voice – quieter, but with more _pain_ – "if we had known you were going to be a cardiac surgeon… you _bastard_, you could have done something. You could have saved Yanagi."

I feel drops on my cheek, on my hands, and suddenly all around us a feeble rain is falling. He stares at me and shakes his head, then walks briskly away. Fuuko roughly drags her palm across her eyes and follows after him. Ishijima does not meet my gaze when he, too, leaves.

I do not watch them go. I stand rooted to the spot, and after some time the drizzle turns into a downpour. The weather is so bitterly dramatic, I feel like throwing up. I never was any good at dealing with loss. I trudge close to Yanagi's grave, and after a pause, I fall to my knees before it, uttering prayers to gods I do not even believe in, begging for absolution – some, _any_, kind of cleansing. _Please_.

The grass is wet; the earth on the grave is wet; my clothes are soaked, and I am shivering like a leaf in an autumn wind. _Yanagi_, I say in my head over and over again, _I'm so sorry_. There are things I cannot forget – I am not _allowed_ to forget – and I wonder how fucking _ignorant_ I must have been, to think forgetting my life here was ever the right thing. I look up to the clouds. Rain is coming down in torrents now, but I cannot tell if my face is wet with heaven's tears, or if these are my own.

* * *

I realize it's a little dramatic, but on second thought, it might not be too far out of the ballpark: Tokiya did, after all, love Yanagi like a sister (and even more, at one point in the manga), so. Hope you enjoyed this; please do leave a review and tell me if you did (or didn't) before you go. Thanks for reading, and see you in the next chapter. :) Ja!


	3. Drei: The Only Part She Missed

Author's Note: My thanks go to the people who read and reviewed the second chapter, and though they may not be able to read this, I also send my sincerest thanks to those who bothered to check out my one-shot, _Wish_. Well, my practice time is over now: after almost thirty days, more than 3300 words and a million revisions, I finally came up with the third chapter, which I think has a markedly different tone and style from the earlier chapters, since it's mostly made up of dialogue - which is a challenge for me, and though it was pretty taxing, I was excited to see what I could pull off with something that was more dialogue-driven. I hope you like it. :)

Oh, and again, standard disclaimers apply; warning for some strong language and implied sexual situations.

* * *

_Kapitel Drei_ (Chapter Three)  
**THE ONLY PART SHE MISSED  
**

A few years after I began training at the Charité, I met this philosophy major about four years younger than me. Born and raised in Tokyo, her family moved to Berlin after she graduated high school, and went to Humboldt University for college and her Masters. We saw each other at restaurants and went out for coffee a few times before I finally grew large enough balls to ask her out to dinner. Not long after that, she and I started dating – the first steady relationship I'd had since Fuuko. She even saw me through a night of heavy drinking when work at the Charité was being especially hard on me.

But we were both dead sober the first time I brought her to my apartment. I even remember the way she looked into my eyes when I slipped her dress off her shoulders. When she locked her steel-gray eyes with mine, I saw how uncertain she was.

"Are you okay? – I mean, don't tell me you're a…?"

"No," she answered quickly, quietly, with a small shake of her head. "No, I'm not. I'm just… scared. It's the first time… in a while."

I kissed her, and after we made love, we collapsed together on my bed, the two of us trying to catch our breath. Her dark hair was sprawled across the pillow like a black curtain. She pressed her lips to my shoulder, sighing sadly, and I moved off to lie beside her. In a few minutes, she was placidly asleep in my arms, but for what felt like half an hour, I stared up at my bedroom ceiling, watching the patterns the darkness traced across it, listening to her deep and even breathing.

When I finally managed to get some sleep, my dreams were filled with whirling flashes of pale shoulders turning into scarred shoulders turning into black hair, then into violet hair, until finally all I could see was a desperate and profound uncertainty in a pair of sad gray eyes.

&

When I woke up in the morning, she wasn't beside me. I promptly panicked, thinking I had driven her away, and in nothing but my boxers I hurried out of the bedroom to find her in the kitchen, wearing the white button-down shirt I had on last night, her thighs half-covered by the tails, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. I smelled breakfast.

"Hi." She waved a fork. "Take a seat."

"I'd rather take my shirt."

She laughed. "Oh, no, you're not getting me naked two days in a row." I chuckled, too, and instead picked up the wife beater I'd left lying on the couch in the wake of last night's events. She poured us both coffee and set down two plates of waffles. She took a seat facing me.

"You know," she began in a careful voice, "I don't think I ever told you about this."

"What is it?"

She gestured at me to begin eating, so I did. She took a sip of her coffee before continuing.

"My high school sweetheart looked almost exactly like you."

I swallowed the bite of waffle I was chewing. "What?"

She primly sliced a portion of waffle; speared it with her fork. "There are a few deliberate mistakes. He had darker hair; a longer nose – but your jaw, your eyes, your mouth; all of it is the same. When I saw the look in your eyes last night… I'm sorry I scared you. It just came rushing back to me."

"Love of your life?" I joked. She smiled, somewhat sadly, but did not reply. "Where is he now?"

She paused thoughtfully. "Two nights after our high school graduation, we decided to go out to dinner, just the two of us. We were crossing an intersection when a white Honda civic slammed straight into his side of the car. Turns out the fucker was trying to beat a red light. My boyfriend's car was totaled. So was he."

My mouth was dry despite the mouthful of coffee I had just swallowed. "I'm so sorry. But you…?"

"I walked away from the wreck, scot-free." She pushed the half-eaten waffle around on her plate before cutting up another bite. "Some people called it a miracle that I was alive. I thought it was a tragedy that he had to die while I was completely unscathed."

I had no idea what to say next. "Is that why you moved to Berlin?"

She gave a noncommittal shake of the head. "My father had been promoted to a Berlin post six months prior to that summer, so whether or not my boyfriend had died, we would still have gone. But it was one of the reasons why I was so glad to leave. Life was never quite the same after that."

My sister swept through my thoughts. "Yeah, I can imagine."

I stood up to pour us both more coffee, and while she was mixing cream into her cup, she said, "I think all of us has loved and lost somebody that way - to death; to distance; to time; it doesn't matter. It's always some circumstance that's completely beyond human control. They're taken from us so _suddenly_ that all the love we have for them is displaced towards some indefinite destination." She rummaged for the right words. "It's as if when they go, they heave your heart into a boat and push it offshore, leaving it to the mercy of the current. And then, they calmly wade forward into the ocean, until the waters swallow them whole, and they just… disappear."

An unsettling image, that one. "And if the boat is found?"

She shrugged. "I don't think it's found if it doesn't want to be found. So many people would sacrifice _so much_ to bring back the people they've lost, just because they can't deal with the separation. They'd rather risk wandering forever than give up searching for the ones who drowned."

I stroked the rim of my coffee cup. She unrolled one of her sleeves, and it covered her hand so that only her fingertips poked through.

"I had a sister," I said haltingly, surprised that I was even telling her this. "I was a kid. Some… robbers got into our house. They… stuck a knife in her back."

Her lips parted in surprise. "Oh, Christ. I'm so sorry. That must have been terrible."

I swished the dregs of coffee around the bottom of the cup. "It was. Life was a moot point for me after that. We'd already lost our parents in a traffic accident before that, so I had no one left. My… grandfather took me in." I left it at that. She was too lovely to know the dirty details.

"I had no idea. I'm sorry."

We stared at our empty plates in silence before she stood and took them to the sink. "Did you… ever have a girlfriend back in Japan?"

The question took me by surprise. After a pause, I said, "Just one."

She put the coffee pot in the sink, and then took her seat in front of me again. "Did you love her?"

I think that from the moment that this girl and I came into each other's lives, we both understood that together, we could not achieve _love_. We could hardly be called _friends _either, since people who are _just_ _friends_ do not come to each other's apartments after dinner to sleep with each other.

But like any city in the world, everyone is lonely. The two of us just happened to share the same kind of loneliness. Neither of us could hope – no, neither of us _expected_ – to have anything as mind-blowingly beautiful as what I had with Fuuko or what she had with her dead boyfriend. But when you find yourself cold and alone in a foreign country, sometimes you just need someone.

_Anyone_.

"Yes," I said. "I love her."

Before I could realize it, I'd used the present tense. With a small smile, she looked at me, watching my expression. "Do you wish you had her back?"

I hesitated, but it was the truth. "Every day."

Gently, she dusted imaginary crumbs from the table.

"She's still in Japan, as far as I know."

"Then you're being an idiot," she told me quietly. "Why did you let her go?"

I breathed. "I thought she didn't love me anymore. And I thought… I didn't love her."

She met my eyes. "It never goes away."

"No," I agreed, "it never does."

That was the end of our conversation that morning, and the last time we ever touched on any of our past relationships. We dated for almost a year, but we stopped seeing each other when she told me she planned on leaving for Hamburg. Two years after that, I heard she returned to Berlin, but I never got around to seeing her again. Not until six months later, at her funeral: she had slit her wrists in the bath.

My father, my mother, Mifuyu, this girl. And years afterward, Yanagi. To me, their funerals are a blur: the same grave faces; the same dark-colored suits; the same dry sadness. As a boy of nine, of ten, and then, of twenty-eight, of thirty-eight… I have stood in front of their coffins, sandstorms turning in the barren landscapes within me. The years of my life have been marked by absence as empty as the expectation of rain.

It is just as she said. My heart is in a boat which is at the mercy of the current. My loved ones have gone into the ocean, into the waters of goodbye. But I – I am in a desert, _deserted_, left to wander the sands of my own arid loss.

&

The morning after Yanagi's funeral, I push open the door to the diner I frequented in high school. The place is bigger than I remember, and the décor has gone from yellows and oranges to subdued shades of blue. There is an appealing little two-seater table by the corner, and I almost make my way towards it, when I realize that the equally appealing two-seater beside it is occupied by no less than Fuuko.

I cross the diner and hover uncertainly in front of her. There's a half-finished cup of coffee on the table, and the book in her hands is a Nabokov.

"Since when were you into Nabokov?" I am trying to sound good-humored.

She lifts her eyes from the book. It isn't nine AM yet, and she already looks tired – or maybe it's because it's me she's dealing with. "If you had been around, you would know."

Ah. I saw that coming. "So give me a chance to catch up."

With an exasperated sigh, she gestures nonchalantly at the vacant seat in front of her. "Thanks," I say and sit down. "Have you had breakfast?"

"Just coffee."

"Would you _like_ some breakfast?"

She shrugs. I wave at a waitress, and she comes to list down our orders for two bacon specials and a pot of coffee.

"Alright. How do you want to do this, Mi-chan?" There's something hard-worn and melancholy about her now, which I didn't notice yesterday.

"You're not mad anymore?"

She puts down the book. "Of course I am. You were gone thirteen years. But I'm too tired to argue about it, so whatever you want to do now… just. Whatever."

I gaze at her. She is staring back at me with those huge, violet eyes of hers. "You look different," I begin, and she raises her eyebrow. "It suits you. And your hair, it's long."

"Yours isn't."

"I cut it before I…" I don't know if I can say _left Japan_, but she understands anyway. She nods.

"It looks good. You look like a doctor." I don't detect sarcasm, which is good.

"Thank you. I tried to grow a beard a few years ago."

There's genuine surprise when she says, "Really? How did it work out?"

"It didn't."

She smiles a little, amused. The waitress comes and puts down two plates of bacon, toast, scrambled eggs and hash browns, along with little dishes of butter, cheese, jam and fresh fruit in front of us. She pours us both coffee, and sets down the pot on the table. We thank her, and she leaves.

"So. The inevitable question comes. How _are _you?"

She takes a deep breath, as if bracing for something big. "Oh, you know. I've been here and there. I stayed for a while at Tokyo University, but soon I was offered a research grant at the Yukawa Institute. One thing led to another, and I ended up staying."

"Yukawa Institute? As in, Kyoto University's Yukawa Institute?" She nods, and I beam at her. "Well, you've jumped ship, but wow. Wow, that's amazing. What's your current project?"

"Planetary physics in relation to global warming."

"How Al Gore."

"We have to do our part," she says in a poor imitation of the politician's nasal slur. We both crack up, and I feel the tension between us disperse somewhat.

"So you live in Kyoto now."

She closes her eyes for a second, and then opens them, giving me a half-smile. "Yes. It's not as far away as Berlin, though, so I still get to visit every few weeks or so." I nod and say nothing. "What _is_ Berlin like?" she asks.

"Cold," I shrug. "Austere. Beautiful." A pause of hesitation. "Lonely."

"Lonely," she repeats, almost as if she has never heard of the word, never felt it. "How so?"

"Oh, you know." Cardiac surgery in the day, hard liquor and sex in the night.

"Cardiac surgeon by day, hard liquor and sex enthusiast by night?"

God damn it, Fuuko. Thirteen years and you _still_ know me too well. "More or less. It's not a nice life," I admit.

"I imagined you'd be a wild success," she remarks with some sadness.

"I am. At my job, I'm brilliant. But I fail at life."

She doesn't take her eyes off me. For years I've imagined this encounter, practiced it in my head: Fuuko will ask me, _How are you_, and I will say, _I feel like shit, thanks very much_, and it's a disgusting answer, but it's the story of my life, and incidentally, it's also the first true thing I will say to her in thirteen years.

Surprisingly, she hasn't flinched at all, not once in the short but taut silence between us. When she speaks, it is with some sympathy – or is it empathy?

"Yeah, I think I know what you mean." She raises her coffee cup to her lips. There is a faraway look in her eyes, and I am waiting for her to come back to this table. Her unhappiness feels frighteningly similar to mine.

"Whatever happened to that research assistant you were dating? After you and I were over?" I say it like I don't expect it to sting. It doesn't seem to; not for her, at least, though I don't think I can say the same for me.

"Toru?" she asks, and I nod. "When he found out I was leaving for Kyoto, he proposed to me." She spreads some butter on her toast.

"You said no."

She looks up at me, and I'm not sure if it's hurt or surprise that I read in her eyes. "I did. I caught him with another girl in his apartment three months later."

"Jesus Christ. What an ass."

"I know. So I ended it – changed my phone number, had the lock to my flat changed, threw out all his stuff and cried for days. And then, one morning, I woke up next to a half-finished box of chocolates and three empty cans of beer, and I just thought, fuck it. Enough is enough." She hardly drinks, let alone in the way of beer, so I have no doubts about how bad it must have been. She continues, "After three or four days of locking myself up, I went on with my life, and that was that."

"No more engagements?"

"Not after that, no. I've had a few steady relationships here and there – not too many lasted very long, but I didn't beat myself up over those anymore, not like with Toru or with you –"

She claps a hand to her mouth and stares at me. A hot blush creeps up her face, and I remain silent, not meeting her eyes.

Fuuko swallows. "I… It wasn't supposed to come out like that."

"No, it's alright; I understand."

"I didn't mean –"

"It's okay, Fuuko." I hear myself sigh. I sound older than I am. "I… I think I saw it coming, anyway."

She looks at me, unable to reply. "Was it really that bad?" I ask, and all she can do is nod quietly, carefully. There's a long pause, as if everything we're supposed to say has shied away from us. This scenario was much easier in my head.

"When are you going back to Berlin?" she says softly.

"I fly day after tomorrow."

"Oh." She sounds disappointed. "That's… I didn't think you would come here."

"Honestly? Neither did I."

She presses her lips together. "I'm glad you did." A beat. "I mean, it was nice seeing you. I missed –"

For a moment I think she's going to say it, but then she takes it back. "I needed closure." She looks down at her hands on the table. "It was the only part we missed."

I nod. "Yeah. It was… I'm glad I got to spend time with you again."

She gives me a forgiving smile. "I have to go now, Mi-chan."

"Yeah, I'll take care of this."

"You're sure?"

"Mmhmm. Not a problem."

She signals to the waitress, who goes behind the counter to ring up our check.

"Fuuko, before you go." She looks at me. "Is there… is there any way I can reach you?"

A moment of stillness, and then I see the light in her eyes dance with amusement. "You're lucky I don't have a suitable bookmark," she says, opening the Nabokov book and pulling out the calling card she was using as a bookmark. She takes out a pen from her pocket, and writes a number on the back of the card, and then she hands it to me.

"That on the front is my office at the Yukawa Institute. The one at the back is my flat."

I slip the card into my shirt pocket. "Thank you."

She gives me a small smile and rises, the book in her hands. "See you around."

"Yeah," is all I reply.

Fuuko leaves, and the waitress comes with the check. I pay and step out of the diner, and I raise my face to the sun: the day is clear and beautiful. I shield my eyes: not a cloud in sight. _See you around_. Yes, well.

I make my way towards the park for a quick stroll. It's a quarter to ten, a little late in the morning - but not too late, _not yet_.

* * *

Well, now. This chapter is pretty long, but I didn't want to break it up into parts anymore, since I think the two breakfast encounters described herein contrast each other nicely. That, of course, is just my two cents: do review and tell me what _you_ think of it. As for me, I'll see you in the next chapter. Ja ne! :)


	4. Vier: Late to Save

Author's Note: This chapter explores a part of Tokiya's history that the story has only previously touched upon in brief. Again, it's pretty dialogue-driven - less than the previous chapter, for sure, but definitely more than the first two. This was also difficult to write for me, because I wanted to stay faithful to the tension between these characters. But let's not spoil it, shall we? :) Enjoy.

Standard disclaimers still apply. Warning for some language.

* * *

_Kapitel Vier _(Chapter Four)  
**LATE TO SAVE**

Sometimes I look back on the part of my life where I believed I was in love with Yanagi for a reason other than her resemblance to my sister, and I think myself a fool. Of course, there is no question that Hanabishi too was a fool, but in his own special way: his idiocy was the endearing kind, the sort of blithe and gentle naïveté one would expect of someone who had seen none of the cruelty of the world, none of the harsh realities of life.

I, on the other hand, had every reason to be wiser than Hanabishi, having known loss and despair so early in life. And yet, I was still a fool - one of the highest order, the kind that thinks the world is tame beneath his feet and does not realize that he is, in fact, treading on quicksand. I knew Yanagi saw me as a protector, a friend – at most, a brother. That was all. I could never have the love she so easily gave to Hanabishi. Still, it was not enough for me to want her _to be safe_, or want her _to be happy_ – so silly of me: I wanted her _to be mine_.

That, I think, was my mistake. I watched her, and inside me, I burned, more hotly than any flame of Hanabishi's ever could. I watched her when her smiles were bright, and her laughter, resonant, and it was always with him. Always Hanabishi. _Always someone else_.

He and I were both fools; that much I know, but over the past few years I have slowly unraveled the secret to it, the final difference. He was a fool for loving her so quickly, so fully, so carelessly. As for me, I used to think I was a fool for loving her selfishly. The truth is, I was a fool for loving her at all.

&

It occurs to me that I must be out of my mind.

Well – to some people, this may be classified as _doing the right thing_, but I've lived less than cleanly for more than a decade, so my discomfort should be excusable. It _is_ unimaginable, after all: I am standing in a yard that belongs to a person I have never been particularly comfortable with. I am thus bracing myself for the worst.

My leather-shod feet are framed by the welcome mat; my left hand is wrapped around the neck of a bottle of scotch; all that is left now is for my other hand to just _please_ get it over with and _knock_ on the damn _door_ already.

_Here goes nothing_, I sigh to myself.

A few raps. After five glorious seconds of silence, it occurs to me that nobody might be home, so I turn to walk away, but then I hear the locks inside crack open, and soon Hanabishi is staring at me from the small space in the doorway with only his door's security chain and a five-feet distance between us.

"You've got a lot of nerve coming here," he tells me. Oh, you have _no_ idea how much nerve it took.

"I have scotch," I say, trying to sound neutral. "It's a peace offering."

He slams the door closed, and for a shocked and aghast moment or two I feel like kicking it open, hoping it hits him in the face, but I hear the sound of sliding metal. He opens the door again, wider this time; the security chain is gone.

He steps back. "Thanks," I mutter, and unceremoniously thrust the bottle at him. He takes it as I enter.

The inside of the house is small, but it's very clean and well-kept. Either the Hanabishis are a fastidious couple, or they have a housekeeper. Knowing Recca, I have serious doubts about the former.

Then again, Yanagi always had excellent taste, so it's not impossible that she may have rubbed off on Hanabishi. The interiors are bright but not garish: white and pale yellow stripes for wallpaper, blond wood, beige upholstery, very classy.

Hanabishi is eyeing me as he closes the front door. "If you're going to say something snide – "

"I wasn't," I interrupt. "I like it." Since when was Hanabishi Recca the cynic male-bitch?

He looks at me as if I'm not from this planet and runs a hand through his hair. "Uh. Take a seat."

"Thank you."

I settle down on the leather armchair, and he goes behind a linoleum counter and into their small kitchen. _Yanagi was collapsed on the kitchen floor with a sponge in her hands and a soapy pot at her side_.

I shiver.

"There isn't much I can offer," he says gruffly. "I have beer and orange juice in the fridge."

"You know, I hear that scotch is pretty damn good."

He shrugs. "Yeah, okay."

I watch him set out two glasses and fill them with cubes of ice. He pours scotch over both, and brings them over. I take one from him. He sinks into the seat opposite me.

"I know you're a guest and all, but I'll be forward, Mikagami." He swills his glass around, and the ice clinks softly. "What the fuck are you doing here, really?"

I have never met this version of Hanabishi; this one is – how shall I say it – _wearier_ than the one I knew. "I wanted to make it up to Yanagi." I pause to down the liquor. It's very smooth. "Hence, the peace offering."

"Bullshit," he says, before knocking back half of his scotch. He leans forward, his elbows on his thighs, his fingers wrapped around the glass. "You were gone thirteen years; you wanted nothing to do with us, and you actually expect you can waltz back into this town as if nothing's changed?"

"I was expecting nothing of the sort." I rub the rim of the glass with my thumb. "If anything, I was bracing myself for an angry mob."

He frowns.

"Look, I'm not expecting any kindness from you. I just wanted to do this for Yanagi's sake." There's a hitch in my voice that I don't want him to hear, so I pause. "You're not the only one who loved her, Hanabishi."

He looks at me, and his face is intense. "You think you loved her, Mikagami? You think you _loved _her?" He laughs, mirthlessly, a short laugh, but it sends a chill down my arms. "You didn't make the sacrifices I did. You didn't feel what I did. You didn't _protect_ her. You didn't see her on that floor; you didn't bring her to the hospital– _you weren't even here_!"

"I had my reasons, Hanabishi," I tell him quietly. _I wish I knew what they were_, is the part that's missing.

"That isn't it. You could have called. You could have written. You could have given us just _one_ hint that you were still alive. But no, _nothing_, you arrogant son of a bitch. If you had loved her, you would have known just how much it broke her heart, when she heard that you'd left."

I refuse to indulge him and acknowledge that he is right. The guilt I have to carry around is shameful enough.

"I watched her cry herself to sleep, Mikagami. For weeks. And if it did that to her, you can't imagine how Fuuko was."

"It wasn't as simple as that. We'd all drifted then."

"You were our friend."

Something like a guitar string snaps apart in my stomach, and the ache echoes in me like a dead note filling the air. It shocks me that his words hurt as deeply as this. "It didn't matter where you were, Mikagami. We would have wanted to know you were alright – Yanagi and Fuuko more than anyone."

I open my mouth, trying to cough up the words, but they aren't coming. When did Hanabishi Recca learn to make so much sense?

"You're wrong," is all I can manage. I sound like a twelve-year-old. "I loved her."

By now, I think, Hanabishi has realized that I am confounded by his correctness. He meets my eyes and in a hushed, pained voice, says, "Then you shouldn't have left."

"I had to."

"You could have saved her. You could have done something. " He sets the empty glass down on the coffee table, and gazes out the window. "But she's gone now."

The silence hangs between us, and the look on Hanabishi's face is dark as a priest hearing a dying man's final confession. There is so much I must atone for, an entire array of sins I must seek penance for. _Lord, have mercy_.

"I'm sorry," I say, and he turns, his eyes wide with sadness and disbelief.

"What?"

I look down at my hands, which are pale and shaking. "I said, I'm sorry."

He continues to stare at me, incredulous. Still not looking at him, I mutter, "I wish I… I wish I could have… saved her." My fingers are trembling, and I clasp my hands together so Hanabishi won't see. _Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned_. "There are a lot of things I'm not proud of, Hanabishi. There are a lot of things I regret, and looking back, I would give up all those small pleasures of mine if it meant I could bring her back – bring _everything _back to the way they were, before life caught up with us."

Hanabishi's expression has softened: the look on his face is more – _forgiving_, I would say, but I doubt it. Less forbidding, maybe. I crack my knuckles, and the sound is sharp and alive in the taut stillness.

"I really did love her." I press my lips together, and finally, lock gazes with him. "I still do. Just not in the way… that I used to."

He knows everything and nothing. I know only that I am at fault, and I've known for a long time.

"It's too late to do anything for her now," Hanabishi breathes.

"I know." I swallow. "And I'm sorry."

He doesn't say anything, but he gets up and takes the glasses from the coffee table. He goes into the kitchen, and as I put my head in my hands, I hear him rinsing them in the sink. He was the one she chose, the one she deserved, the one who could love and protect her better than I ever could.

A few moments later, he stands uncertainly at the linoleum counter. "I have dinner with her parents in a few hours."

"I guess I should go, then." I rise from my seat and wordlessly follow him to the front door, which he unlocks for me. We share a very formal nod, and then I turn to leave.

"Mikagami." His tone is kind. Sad, almost. "You fix broken hearts for a living."

"Yeah." This is not a question, but there is nothing I can say.

He looks at something in the distance for a second, and then says to me, "It's too late for Yanagi, but there's someone out there who needs to heal."

We both know he's talking about Fuuko. I shake my head. "I was the disease."

He smiles, once, and it's the kind of smile you give a child who's given you a very foolish answer. "If you ask me, you've always been the cure."

Hanabishi shuts the door. I turn and walk out of the yard, and as I step out into the sidewalk, I stand there, watching the people pass by. There are children riding bikes, a girl and her dog, an elderly couple eating ice cream. The woman laughs, and suddenly she is radiant. _You fix broken hearts for a living_.

I cross the street. The cool breeze hits me like an epiphany, and I breathe in, knowing that somewhere, _somewhere_, in this city, there is a heart that needs saving.

* * *

I thought Recca and Tokiya needed closure, too; hence, this chapter. As my plans for this fic go, the next one is the last chapter, so do stay tuned for that! In the meantime, I'd love to hear what you thought of this. :) I'll see you in the last one, and thank you for reading!


	5. Fünf: An Unlikely Departure

Author's Note: Our internet line at home was disconnected a few days ago, and instead of moping around, I decided to finally get my act together and sit down to write the last chapter. It was a good idea, too: this is the only chapter that I wrote in one sitting, not including the final edits. I'm pretty proud of how it came out: I was scared it would be really hard, since I didn't have any particular outline for this chapter, except for the very last scene. This was actually the chapter that flowed most naturally - I just had to sit back and let it rip.

In other news, I've been asked a few times what eins, zwei, drei, vier, etc mean: they're one, two, three, four, etc in German. See, it's a sad story, but there's a nice little language lesson to go with it.

But, while I'm rambling, I'm going to take the time to thank everyone who showed their support for this story through its development. It really means a lot to me that this fic has been received well, since it _is_ the story with which I made my - if you will - "return" to this site.

So, without further ado, I present to you the last chapter of _After Goodbye_. I hope you like it! :D  
(Again, standard disclaimers apply; warning for some mild language.)

* * *

_Kapitel Fünf _(Chapter Five)**  
AN UNLIKELY DEPARTURE**

There are parts of my tale that I have refused to disclose for reasons that even I cannot fathom. Sometimes it seems as if all these years, there remains in me a certain fear, that retelling these events will mean having to relive them, which is one of the many things in my life that I can do without. Other times, it feels like I am keeping a sweet and incriminating secret, a clandestine account of a tryst with chance that cannot be spoken of, lest it loses its magic.

Whatever my motives, the only thing I am certain of is that mine is a selfish silence: I save no face but my own with the things I keep. I am hoping, then, that my undoing will be just the same; that no one else but me will be denied forgiveness for divulging what I will now.

&

It was not easy for Fuuko to love me.

Granted, it wasn't easy for me to love her either. We began college the way we ended high school: less of her childish violence, for sure, but we were nothing but friends. She moved in different circles than I, at least during her first year and my second. Or should I say: she moved in circles, loose and loud and cheerful ones. I drew my circles tightly around texts and theses and grades, the things that I thought made me happy.

But I remember the way I ran into her in the middle of a bad rain, the way we sat together at a small and run-down coffee shop for lack of anyplace else to take cover beneath. I remember the way she talked to me, as if something in her had suddenly upped and left, or at least grown up. "I don't know if he was my first love," she said, referring to the bastard who had broken up with her the night before. "He was your first boyfriend," I told her; _that's all_, I had wanted to add.

It began there. The downpour didn't let up until two and a half hours later, and we had spent the whole time talking. In that short time, I'd come to know her better than the years we'd spent squabbling with each other in high school. She had looked past my shoulder at the window of the café and remarked, "The rain's stopped." And then, with her gaze on me, she said, "We should do this again sometime."

We did. It took two months for me to even realize I was falling in love with her, a month's struggle trying to deny it, and then one more month for me to actually do something about it. And the way I dealt with it then – I'll admit, it wasn't particularly graceful, but I'm proud of it.

I remember: my afternoon was free, so she had asked me to help her out with some research. We worked until sunset, and while we stood in front of the library, without any warning or ceremony whatsoever, I silenced her mid-thanks with our first kiss.

She had walked away from me. She had stared at me for two seconds in utter astonishment and then, without a word, had turned and walked briskly away. We didn't speak for three days, but when she finally showed up at my dorm room door, the first words out of my mouth were, "I'm sorry."

The first words out of hers was, "You shouldn't be," and then for a few moments, there were no words. Just an overdue kiss.

But as I've said: it wasn't easy for us to love each other. That first year together was a trial period, like a baby learning to walk. I learned all her annoying habits the hard way, the same way she learned mine. We weren't always happy, but when we were, it was as if everything in the world was beautiful, and nothing could ever hurt.

Sometimes I dream that I have traveled back in time, and I see my self during that difficult time when she and I had begun to drift because of my training. I shake my self again and again, and I tell him, _Don't let go of her_, but I find that my voice is gone, and I am displacing no silences, and I am breathing air that is as thick and heavy as my young doppelganger's surprise, so that when he opens his mouth and screams at the horror of finding the ghost of his future before him, I wake up in a cold sweat, shaking in bed.

Thirteen years. It's too long a time to keep anyone waiting. I tell everyone the reason I said nothing about my departure was that we were all inconsequential in each other's lives then. What I do not tell them is the other half of the story: I said nothing simply because I thought I was going to come back.

But I will never forget the view of Japan beneath us on the plane, and the sadness that sprang through me when I realized it was a one-way trip, a headlong plunge into uncertain territory. I thought it would be good for me. I thought I could start over.

God only knows how wrong I was.

It's ironic that someone who deals so expertly in life-saving and heart-mending has let his life go to waste and his heart board up its windows. When I'm not working, I'm reading or drinking or something else that's mundane and solitary, and if not, I'm fucking a strange woman who's just as lonely as I am, but I never tell any of them that. I think I've always known that none of my drunken conquests will ever come close to anything Fuuko and I had.

Even to this day I wonder why I left, despite knowing that.

&

"Tokiya?"

It's the evening of my visit to Hanabishi's house, and I am wearing my best jacket with my favorite blue shirt. I have ordered an insanely expensive but extremely worth it three-course-meal for one at the hotel restaurant, plus the wine to go with it. I believe I have done all of this to distract myself from all the minor tragedies of coming back, which despite their ugliness don't even measure up to the disgustingly large implosion of Yanagi's death.

And of course, surprise of all surprises, here appears Fuuko, impossible and iridiscent in a low-cut black cocktail dress, while I am in the middle of my vanilla bean flan. Of all places, here, _here_, in the restaurant of the hotel where I'm staying.

She raises her eyebrows as I stare dumbly at her. "I, uh. Hi. This is where I'm staying."

"Funny, you think you would have mentioned that."

"Well, what are _you_ doing here?"

She shrugs. "Dinner. The food here is good; I like to treat myself here when I'm in town."

A waiter comes up to her. "Do you have a table, ma'am?"

"Oh, she can sit with me," I tell him. She looks at me and says, "Yeah," to the waiter. He pulls out the chair opposite me for her, and she settles into it. He hands her a menu and bows out.

"Don't worry, I'm going to be gone in a while." I say to her. "That's a great dress, by the way – "

"Wait, what? You're not even going to stay?"

"Well, you caught me at dessert. And besides, I have to be up early tomorrow; I have a morning flight."

She puts down the menu. "You're leaving tomorrow."

"Yes. I thought I told you yesterday at the diner?"

"Yeah, I'd just. I forgot." She fiddles with the bracelet she's wearing. "Were you going to say goodbye this time?"

I look down at my dessert. "Well, yes. But I wasn't planning on doing it till tomorrow."

"Really." There's an edge to her voice. "What were you going to say?"

I shrug. "I was going to make it up as I go along."

"Obviously you have no experience with saying goodbye."

She says this, and it's a sharp-edged insult. I realize now that the edge in her voice was hurt.

"This is not the place to argue this again, Fuuko. Neither is it the time."

"Then _when_, Tokiya? After another eternity, when we're old and shriveled and dying, is that when you're going to come home?"

"Home is Berlin now."

"Bullshit!" she hisses at me, her voice quiet, but her eyes alight with anger. "I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you. You come here, acting as if you're sorry, asking how to keep in touch, looking as if you want another chance, and I was half-ready to give it to you. You son of a bitch. Hot one minute, cold the next; what am I supposed to do?"

"Fuuko." It's taking the best of my cool to not yell at her. "We can talk about this when I'm back in Germany. I need to clear my head. Tokyo has been a sensory overload. It's too much for me. When I'm in Berlin again, I will call you; we can thresh this out. You came here to have dinner, so have dinner – "

She cuts me off and signals a waiter, who comes forward. "Could you bring his check, please?" He asks if she wants to order. "No, thank you. I've lost my appetite."

When he leaves, I say, "Come on. Let's be rational about this."

"I am, Tokiya." She leans back in her seat. "In an hour, I'm going to be on a train back to Kyoto. I've packed all my bags, and the only thing left for me is to return to my hotel, change out of this ridiculous dress and get on that train. But before you and I part ways again, I will ask you one question." A pause. I know what it's going to be. "_Do you want to be with me?_"

I also know there is no easy answer. "It's not that simple, Fuuko."

"How can a yes or no _not be_ _that simple_?"

"It's not like that." I look at her, and I am a fool. _Yes_, I want to say. But, _but_. "I have a life in Berlin."

"You had a life here. _With me_."

The waiter comes with my check, and I hand him my credit card. He hurries away with it.

"Just yes or no, Mi-chan. Do you want to be with me?"

I am a dead man. "Yes, Fuuko."

Her words rip through me: "Then call me," she says, "when you're ready to prove it."

She smooths out her dress as the waiter arrives with my card and the receipts I have to sign. I scrawl my name on the line, and she sits there watching me. When he is gone, we both rise.

"For the record, Tokiya," she declares in a pained voice, "I knew you were staying here. I came because I wanted to see you before we both left." She pauses to swallow a lump in her throat. "At least now we know which one of us really wanted to say goodbye."

I only answer with stunned silence. She wipes her eyes, and the world slows down as I watch her turn from me without a word.

This is not the first time she has walked out of my life. But in my head, I swear to myself that it will be the last.

&

It is five AM, and the sun is not yet out. I spent much of last night packing, and the rest sleeping fitfully. Waking up at four, I took a hot bath in the hopes of calming myself down. My flight leaves eleven-thirty, so I have to be at the airport at half-past-six. I'm scheduled to check out at five-thirty, so while I wait for the busboys to take my luggage down, I'm sitting at the foot of the bed, flipping through the television, hoping to find something to get my mind off Fuuko.

There's an old Christopher Reeve movie, early morning shows, MTV, the Food Network, an Oprah rerun, some local soap operas, Japanese baseball; I yield to CNN. Yawning idly, I wonder if the hotel will call a cab, like I'd arranged. Al Gore is being interviewed by Larry King in file footage.

I rub my forehead. Everything reminds me of her. I stare at the phone on the nightstand. Since last night, I've known what I was supposed to do. The only thing that escaped me was when I was supposed to do it.

And then, like some twisted prophet, Al Gore booms out, "We have to act _now_. If not, everything we love _now_ will be _gone _in the future."

I hate to say he's right.

I reseat myself on the side of the bed and put my hand into my sweater pocket, pulling out her calling card. I think about calling her flat, but I realize I'm going to be tongue-tied if she answers, and I want this to go as smoothly as possible. Like a mirage, Larry King and Al Gore fade from the screen, and an anchorman tells me that the weather report will be with me after some announcements. I put the television on mute, pick up the phone, and start to dial her office.

&

The first time she spoke to me after I kissed her also marked a confession, which we would replicate in the years to come.

"Mi-chan."

"What is it?"

"I think," she said, and then she laughed. "I think I love you."

For a moment or two, I was speechless, and then I started to laugh too. I cupped her face, not caring that anyone who might pass by my door would see us. Kirisawa Fuuko, my high school pet peeve and my gentle surprise, here and now and _mine_.

To hell with the rest of the world.

"I think," I began, and she smiled, knowing what was going to come next, "I think I love you, too."

&

_You've reached Kirisawa Fuuko at the Yukawa Institute at Kyoto University. Please leave a message after the tone._

A sharp beep, and then, a split second of silence. No turning back now.

"Fuuko," I try, my voice shaking. "Fuuko, it's me. My plane for Berlin leaves at eleven. But this time…" I clear my throat. "It may take months, Fuuko. A year, even. There are things… I have to settle a lot. But I've decided." Finally, I've decided. "I'm coming home to Tokyo."

The confession is torn from me, released like a captive bird. After all these years, _finally_. "When I come back," I add, just before the machine cuts off, "I want to see you."

I put down the phone. My fingers are cold, and the blood is singing in my ears. I put the volume back on, and the green-eyed weatherman is telling me that Europe is having an unusual spell of rain. Germany is particularly wet, and there is video footage of Berlin. The streets are glum and full of puddles. It occurs to me that flights may be delayed, but it seems like a strange thought, as if it was coming from someone else's head.

I hear myself say it, over and over. _I'm coming home to Tokyo. I want to see you._ The moment is clear and liquid, like bright glass, as if I could peer through it and see all the other moments of my life lined up beyond it. I think, _that would be nice_, to see your life laid out so easily, but then again, where's the fun in that, now that there's so much ahead?

_Now there is so much ahead_.

There are resignations to turn in, supervisors to reason with, documents to take care of. I'm not sure how long it's going to take, but I'm going to get it done. The clock above the television tells me that it's five-ten. Twenty minutes. I have said my goodbye. But after goodbye… everything will begin again.

For now, however, all I have is this weather report and the inescapable silence following revelations and epiphanies. The weatherman is almost finished with his segment; he is doing a quick recap. I look out the window. It's only beginning to get light out: the night sky is shot with the pinks and yellows of dawn. I get off the bed and cross to the window, where I seat myself on the ledge. It's a beautiful morning.

I glance once at the weatherman, then turn the television off. Color seeps into the sky, and light is slowly pulling itself from beneath the horizon.

They tell me it is raining in Berlin.

I smile. They do not know: here in Tokyo, the sun is rising.

* * *

Well, that wasn't so sad, now, was it? ;) Haha! Thirteen years is a hell of a long time to come to one's senses, but at least Tokiya finally knows where he should be.

Well, everyone, it's been a wild ride for me - lots of late nights, a weeks-long bout of writer's block, hundreds of revisions, a lot of reading to get my spark back - but I had so much fun writing this. I hope you did, too, reading it. I'm extremely grateful there have been readers who have stuck with this story.

I hope I see you in my next fic - though I have no idea what that'll be yet, or when it will come. Haha. It's been a great run, minna. Cheers, and again, thank you. :)


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